[sims] LEA or CAPITA for SIMS Support ?

[kennysarmy]

Secondary Academy who've also used the LEA for SIMS Support since before the move to become an academy.

 

What might be the pros and cons of moving direct to Capita?

 

Has anyone done this? What was your experience? Positive or Negative?

 

I did ask our LEA what would be the pros and cons of moving and their response was basically if you want to go then go! They made no effort to try and sell their service as being better.

[Michael]

Is it purely a cost exercise why you wish to change support provider? Your LA probably don't care, seeing as the majority of LA support providers are all linked to Capita somewhere down the line.

 

It's a monopoly before our eyes...

[andydis]

Word of Warning, some years ago i approached Capita for direct pricing which they gave me,

few days later the Head of IT Services of the LEA wanted to meet with me about why i was doing this.

(Capita had shared the information with the LEA which they told me they are obliged too)

may be different now.

[PhilNeal]

In my experience LAs care very much indeed!

[Sylv3r]

We moved from the LA to capita direct support when we became an academy as we used SLG and we found the LA couldn't support us with this and I was having to contact CAPITA to ask them to send us the updates etc.

 

We had no issues with the LA and cost wise it was very similar - we are pretty self sufficient when it comes to SIMS so found we only used the LA around twice over an 18 month period so felt we might as well move - I guess one advantage is, our LA is limited to the number of staff able to assist with SIMS queries at busy times - I imagine CAPITA have a bigger team in place with 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support.

[Sydders01]

We moved from LA to Capita directly and it is the best decision we have taken in a while. With Capita you gain more knowledge as Capita staffs wants you to learn as you progress with them but LA don't really care. The cost is fairly the same but response time to fix issues are better with Capita.

[eddyc]

We moved from our LA to Capita around 3 years ago. Cost was slightly less than through our LA and service was much better.

 

Often the LA would have to contact Capita as they did not know the answer which could add days to some queries

[MagicMalc]

I'm in a similar situation but I think I might have found a better option School ICT Services - MIS and SIMS Support for Schools

[HBPS]

Schools ICT services in Leeds are very competitive price wise and the service is fantastic.

[garethEds]

INteresting discussion here - our SLA costings have just arrived and I have been asked my the HT here to look at what we are paying for.

 

Gareth

[kennysarmy]

INteresting discussion here - our SLA costings have just arrived and I have been asked my the HT here to look at what we are paying for.

 

Gareth

 

 

I've been met with resistance to change....

[XiJ]

Sort of hijacking this thread a bit - but I've just left a frustrated headteacher with regards to LA SIMS/Support service. Do any companies - Capita or otherwise allow you to spead the licence cost of SIMS across a 3 (or more) year period?

 

Budget is tiny so cant take the cost of a Capita licence up front. And they don't really want to stop with the LA......

[saggu]

Hi, those who have LA support have you been prohibited to access the Sql as a Network manager? The SA password is not given to you?

 

Would be interested to know.

 

Thanks

[XiJ]

I've just reset the sa password for one of our schools that still use the LA

For support. Not sure how it is in your setup but I googled and found a command line to reset sa password. The answer was within edugeek!

[gh5000]

The two different LA support I deal with would give you the SA password if asked. It's your system not theirs. Who pays the SQL license!

[saggu]

Very true @ghanel. but unfortunately the LA support refuses to give.

@XiJ But if you have changed the SA password then the LA support will not be able to log in!!

[sparkeh]

Hi, those who have LA support have you been prohibited to access the Sql as a Network manager? The SA password is not given to you?

 

Would be interested to know.

 

Thanks

Yep we have sa password. It's our property.

 

You could reset and give it to them if you really wanted to.

[Banjo]

You can reset the SA password from SSMS without the need for scripting. One reason why the LA may be reticent in giving out the SA is that its generic across all their sites. In some schools the LA will also manage the SIMS backups, changes to the SA password may prevent these software plugins from running.

 

Sort of hijacking this thread a bit - but I've just left a frustrated headteacher with regards to LA SIMS/Support service. Do any companies - Capita or otherwise allow you to spead the licence cost of SIMS across a 3 (or more) year period?

 

Budget is tiny so cant take the cost of a Capita licence up front. And they don't really want to stop with the LA......

 

If your an academy then you have to buy from Capita, no alternative. If your still maintained, then the LA most likely hold licence and schools pay AM to Capita via the LA. If you want to buy your own licence, then you have to go to Capita and get a quote, they may do you a multi year deal linked to support as well???. LA's aren't allowed to cross sell AM/licences to schools outside of their LA (anymore) so your stuck with Capita or your own LA.

[hiphopamus]

You can reset the SA password from SSMS without the need for scripting. One reason why the LA may be reticent in giving out the SA is that its generic across all their sites. In some schools the LA will also manage the SIMS backups, changes to the SA password may prevent these software plugins from running.

 

 

 

If your an academy then you have to buy from Capita, no alternative. If your still maintained, then the LA most likely hold licence and schools pay AM to Capita via the LA. If you want to buy your own licence, then you have to go to Capita and get a quote, they may do you a multi year deal linked to support as well???. LA's aren't allowed to cross sell AM/licences to schools outside of their LA (anymore) so your stuck with Capita or your own LA.

 

For your licence yes, but not necessarily for support.

[TechBeard]

I can't recommend Schools ICT based in Leeds highly enough for their amazing SIMS support. School ICT Services - MIS and SIMS Support for Schools I have got them set up in my current school and my last school, saving £7800 and £10500 per year respectively, and their support is a million times better compared with my experience with going to capita direct.

To give you a ballpark figure, their secondary school SIMS support is £2500 per year, and you get a £1200 rebate midway through which is nice. Primary schools I think costs £500 so tremendous value. There SIMS support and training is amazing and always helpful and knowledgable. They also do cloud backup for your SIMS data (to Azure) for somthing mad like £150 per year so its good if you want a one stop shop for all your SIMSy things.

Edited April 10, 2017 by TechBeard

[XiJ]

Very true @ghanel. but unfortunately the LA support refuses to give.

@XiJ But if you have changed the SA password then the LA support will not be able to log in!!

 

Oh dear

 

/sarcasm

[ninjafish]

Connect Up in Leeds are great, they often go above and beyond to help.

[saggu]

You may be correct @Banjo in saying that the LA uses the same password across the sites. But can there not be another account created with the admin permissions? We tried via SSMS but we kept getting the error that we do not have permission.

[Banjo]

You may be correct @Banjo in saying that the LA uses the same password across the sites. But can there not be another account created with the admin permissions? We tried via SSMS but we kept getting the error that we do not have permission.

 

You should be able to. I'm not an expert with SQL but the SA account is for the instance and not the DB. You can create a new account using SSMS on the instance and replicate the SA privileges - | Security |Logins | (Server roles) Sysadmin and public (user mappings) all ticks in the top window against all the dbs, DB_owner and public ticked bottom window. If the SQL instance was installed with Builtin\Administrators & Builtin\Users you should be able to do this from the local admin account on the server.

[saggu]

Thank you @Banjo. This is been done now.